Homemade
by the ramblin rose
Summary: Caryl, AU. They promised to make each other homemade Christmas gifts, and they had the best of intentions. Rated for language.


**AN: Here's a little story based on a Tumblr prompt for homemade gifts.**

**I own nothing from the Walking Dead.**

**I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think! **

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The idea had been simple and it had been well-thought out. The intention behind it was good.

They were celebrating their first year as a married couple. It was their first Christmas as husband and wife. Store bought gifts weren't as personal as homemade gifts, and they wanted their first Christmas to be one that was as warm and Christmas card worthy as any could possibly be.

Daryl had wanted a family his whole life—the solid, stable kind. One that he could call his own. He wanted a wife and children and everything that brought with it. In Carol, he'd found the start of that, and this was the very first Christmas of many, many more to come that would help him to have everything he'd ever dreamed of having.

Carol had suffered through one bad and failed marriage. She'd married and escaped an abusive husband who hadn't realized how truly precious the woman he had was. She wanted the picture-perfect dream life that she'd imagined. She was finding that with Daryl, and this Christmas was a promise that all her dreams would come true.

They would make each other's dreams come true.

The season had gone as beautifully as any in a Christmas movie ever had. They'd found the perfect live Christmas tree and they'd decorated it together. They'd bought coordinating ugly Christmas sweaters and they'd taken a picture which they'd had put on Christmas cards to send to the few people that they even knew. They'd gone to a nearby town that was offering hayrides in place of the sleigh rides that Georgia's weather made impossible. They'd made cookies and cakes and pies and they'd forgiven each other the padding of ten or twelve holiday pounds that seemed to plague them both because happiness made them enjoy food—and hot chocolate and apple cider—more than they ever had before.

They christened every surface of their home by making love there, and more than once they'd forced the event to be festive with Santa hats, the glow of Christmas lights, and the glow of a fire in their fireplace even though the temperature wasn't quite cold enough to require the fire.

So, the last piece of constructing the perfect Christmas, without a doubt, was creating heartfelt and homemade gifts for one another.

Daryl was so nervous about the whole thing that his stomach ached. He was up hours before the dawn on Christmas morning, chewing through Rolaids like they were Christmas candy and washing them down with alternating swigs of Alka seltzer and coffee.

He didn't say anything, but he wondered if Carol was going through something similar because she'd been up even half an hour before him and the almost empty bottle of Pepto Bismol she'd left on the counter told him that she was dealing with some demons as well.

Hers, Daryl reasoned, probably came from too many Christmas cookies the night before. She'd fallen into the gingerbread pretty hard.

His came from the shame he was trying to conceal from his beloved bride.

His gift was not homemade.

He'd meant to make Carol a gift. He really had. But he'd been almost paralyzed by the idea of it. He didn't know what to make. He didn't even know what he was capable of making. And everything that he imagined himself capable of making didn't seem good enough for Carol. Really, nothing seemed good enough for her—and nothing seemed good enough for their first Christmas together. And before Daryl knew it, Christmas was among them and he'd simply paralyzed himself with insecurity.

The wooden jewelry box was beautiful. And it was, arguably, carved by someone. He'd bought it at a place that had assured him that all the items were made by hand.

But it was eating Daryl alive to know that he hadn't followed through with what they'd promised to do—and he didn't have the guts to tell Carol that the whole thing was a lie.

So, when she came back from the bathroom, her hair tied up in a messy knot of curls on her head, and she walked through the kitchen scrubbing at her eyes, he simply pretended that everything was fine. He offered her a mug of coffee.

"Everything OK?" He asked.

"Fine," Carol said.

"Too much gingerbread?" Daryl asked.

"Yeah," Carol said with a laugh. "Same?"

Daryl noticed her glancing at his empty Alka seltzer glass.

"Somethin' like that," he said. "You good?"

"I'm good," Carol assured him. "You?" He nodded. She puckered her lips at him and when he hesitated a moment, she laughed at him. "I brushed my teeth," she said. "But it's good to know that you wouldn't love me if I was sick."

"I would still love you," Daryl said. "Just—I'm dealin' with a real delicate constitution myself. Feel like shit. The last thing I need is somethin' to throw me over the edge an' then we both sick together. Real good way to ruin Christmas." He dropped his hand over her shoulder, rubbed her back affectionately, and ushered her toward the living room. "Come on, let's—relax a little."

"We can open presents," Carol said.

"Great," Daryl responded, though he didn't really feel as enthusiastic as the word implied.

He snagged the wrapped present from under the tree that he had for Carol and she gathered hers up, as well, before following him to the couch. She sat down next to him with her leg tucked under her.

"You go first?" She asked. "Or do I?"

"You go first," Daryl said.

He wanted to at least see some kind of reaction from Carol before he opened the gift that she'd made him with her time and affection and really felt lower than low about the whole thing. Carol put her coffee cup on the coffee table and carefully opened the gift that Daryl had given her. She kept the carved wooden jewelry box resting in her lap as she "oohed" and "aahed" over how beautiful it was and how amazing the carved flowers were—Cherokee Roses, since he'd brought them to her on one of their first dates with a story about how the legend reminded him that he'd found her even after he'd started to give up hope that there was anyone in the world for him.

She was happy with the gift that she held in her lap, even though she didn't know it was a lie. Daryl swallowed down some of the hot coffee like he was taking a shot, winced against the persistent nausea his stress was bringing on him, and opened the gift that Carol had made for him.

The knitted hat, gloves, and scarf were a warm camo green.

"So you don't freeze when you're hunting," Carol offered with a smile.

Daryl turned the items over in his hand, running his fingers over the stitches that Carol had placed there with love and affection. She'd thought of him with every single one. It had probably taken all her free time for months.

Daryl felt like an asshole and his unsettled stomach complained all the more as he accepted that he'd done her dirty by giving her something she thought was homemade—even as she examined it now and commented on how impressed she was by the craftsmanship—and he didn't even have the balls to tell her that he'd lied to her.

And then his finger caught on something.

He turned the scarf over and looked at it. He examined it a second. He smiled to himself as his eyes focused on the little gold sticker. He laughed to himself as a thought struck him.

He glanced at Carol, who was examining her jewelry box.

"What?" She asked.

"I'm lovin' this," Daryl said. "And—I love that you made it for me."

She smiled, somewhat nervously, at him and Daryl thought he understood her nerves.

"You're welcome," Carol said. "I love you. I want you to have the best."

"Oh—I know you love me," Daryl said. "What I don't understand, though, is why you went all the way to Mexico to knit this for me."

Daryl held up the "Made in Mexico" tag that he'd pulled free from the scarf. Carol's cheeks ran pink. She looked sheepish for a moment, but only for a moment.

"I guess—for the same reason that…you thought about selling my Christmas gift for…forty dollars, Daryl," Carol said.

Daryl's stomach twisted when she produced a sticker that, in the handwriting of the old man that had sold it to him, read forty dollars. He thought he'd plucked them all off, but he'd apparently missed one.

"OK—but the point here is that it was your idea to do homemade gifts, Carol," Daryl said.

"And you agreed!" Carol responded.

Daryl laughed.

"Only 'cause it made you happy! And I been sick for like—Jesus—I think I been sick for like weeks. Every day. Just wakin' up like I'ma hurl at four in the morning 'cause of this whole gift-giving shit because I'm a total fuckin' failure at it and I'm thinkin' if you figure it out then it's the end of everything and—Carol—I damn near cried over thinkin' you would figure this shit out and it would ruin our whole fuckin' lives and you lied!"

Daryl wasn't even sure if he was mad or simply amused by the whole thing. Carol stared at him with a furrowed brow like she wasn't sure if she was mad or if she wanted to cry about it.

"You lied too," she offered, her voice remarkably steady.

Daryl laughed to himself.

"But I wouldn't'a had to lie if you'da told me that we were just gonna get each other gifts an' that was it," Daryl said. "No pressure. But no. You made it this whole—homemade thing. And you didn't make me nothin' but sick to my damn stomach for weeks!"

"Fine," Carol said, getting to her feet quickly and putting her jewelry box on the table.

"Fine, what?" Daryl asked. "Where you goin'?" He called after her as she walked away and disappeared down the hallway.

"To get your present," Carol called back.

"What the hell you mean?" Daryl called back to her. "I thought this was my present."

"You had more than one present," Carol said.

"That weren't what we agreed on," Daryl replied.

"Things change," Carol said. "I wasn't going to give it to you until later, but it seems like you might need it now."

"It's homemade?" Daryl called back.

"One hundred percent," Carol responded.

"Don't just go throw somethin' together, Carol," Daryl said, standing up from the couch.

"I'm not," Carol called back. "I've had it for a while. I could have given it to you before, but I was waiting."

Daryl's gut hadn't recovered at all, but now it felt even worse. He'd put his present down on the couch, and he stood awkwardly waiting for his wife to return from the bedroom. He wasn't even sure if this was a fight or what this might be.

When she came back, though, she didn't look like she thought they were fighting at all. She was smiling. Daryl glanced at her hands for the present, but there wasn't one. The only thing different, in fact, was that she'd circled herself with the red ribbon she'd been using to tie up packages, and she'd tied a big bow on herself.

Daryl smiled to himself.

"You my present?" He asked. She didn't say anything. She inclined her head to the side and raised her eyebrows with the "I don't know" kind of gesture that she sometimes gave him. He laughed to himself. "That ain't fair, either," he said. "I could go get some ribbon an' tie it 'round my dick, but it's a stretch to call that a Christmas present. And, besides, I didn't make it, my mama did—same as your mama made you. You can't give away what your mama made and claim it's homemade."

Carol laughed. Her smile was beaming—there was no other word for it and Daryl had lost any of the desire to argue that he'd ever actually had.

He had no idea what he'd done to make her so happy, but he was glad he'd done it. It felt just right for Christmas morning.

He couldn't help himself, and he didn't try to. He reached out for her and pulled her to him. She pushed at him playfully.

"I'm not the gift you idiot," she said without any actual bite to her words. "I'm making the gift. This is the gift."

She backed off and circled the bow she'd tied around herself with her hands like she was creating a target for him to focus on. Daryl laughed at her. He laughed at her words. He laughed at her gesture. He smiled at the happy, goofy expression on her face.

And, slowly, and not without increasing the nausea just a little that had been plaguing him for weeks, he realized what she was gesturing to—what was there, but wasn't there—at least not clearly enough to be seen. He swallowed.

"You mean?" He asked.

"I was going to wait," Carol said. "I don't think we ought to tell anybody else. Not just yet. But I've been working on this little gift for about two months now. Seven weeks."

Daryl swallowed. They'd talked about wanting a family. Carol had been the least sure about it. She still had a lot of trust to recover from her failed marriage. Daryl had never doubted, not for one moment, that he wanted children.

He hadn't imagined, though, that they'd come so soon.

"You makin' us a…" He said, but he couldn't finish.

"Yeah," Carol said. "I am. Are you—OK?"

"Jesus—I feel sick," Daryl said. "But—it ain't you…it ain't this…I just…I feel fuckin' sick. Been sick for weeks."

Carol laughed to herself.

"Me too," she said. "And you don't know how hard it's been to hide it. I didn't want to say anything too early."

"I know how hard it is to hide it 'cause I been hidin' it, too," Daryl said. "The bein' sick, I mean. I know they ain't the same thing, but…"

"They might be related," Carol offered.

Daryl laughed to himself.

"That don't make no sense," Daryl said. "You the one that's—and that ain't got nothin' to do with me."

Carol shrugged her shoulders.

"I'm sure crazier things have happened," she offered.

Daryl reached out to her and pulled her to him. He kissed her with as much feeling as he possibly could, and she sank into him. She ran her hands up and down his back, and he held her, enjoying the feeling of her in his arms.

"Christmas turned out OK, right?" She asked, resting her head against his shoulder when they broke the kiss. He held her in a comfortable hug.

"Perfect," he said.

"And I still got you a homemade gift," Carol teased.

Daryl laughed to himself.

"If we gonna be technical about that shit," Daryl said, "then I give you a homemade gift to get that one started—I just give you your Christmas gift about two months early."

Carol laughed and squeezed him.

"Fair enough," she said. "It's the best early Christmas gift you could give me."

Daryl laughed to himself.

"And damn if you didn't go an' one up me—turn what I give you into somethin' a hundred times better," Daryl said. "But—since it's for both of us, what do you say we call it even? Let's start a fire in the fireplace. Spend the day on the couch—'cause if your gut feels as damn unsettled as mine does, you don't wanna do nothin' no way besides lay on the damn couch and snuggle."

Carol laughed at him.

"I couldn't think of a better Christmas," she said.

"Come on," Daryl offered, tugging her back toward the couch. "You get comfortable. I'll get the fire goin'."


End file.
